Joe Madison: President Obama's No. 1 fan on talk radio

Joe Madison has made a name for himself as one of President Barack Obama’s biggest cheerleaders on talk radio — but he and the president also have the understanding that the talk show host reserves “the right to be an honest critic.”

“My criticism is always constructive — I’m not a shill for the president,” Madison, who hosts “The Joe Madison Show” on SiriusXM’s Urban View channel weekday mornings, said during a recent interview. “Look, I’m an unapologetic supporter of the president. No ifs, ands or buts about that. But at the same time, I reserve the right to be an honest critic.”

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Madison has enjoyed special access to the Obamas, interviewing the president and first lady a number of times and visiting the White House for both off-the-record and on-the-record events.

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who frequently appears on Madison’s show, said the host “welcomes healthy debate between his guests and himself, and I think as a result of that his audience leaves really well-informed about the issues of the day.”

“He doesn’t have a lot of patience for nonsense,” Jarrett told POLITICO. “So we frequent his show, I go on as much as I can, … I think we really enjoy working with him.”

And not many talk radio show hosts can say they share a name with the president of the United States.

But Madison — also known as The Black Eagle — can. And he’s been sure to let Obama, who was adopted into the Crow Nation by the Black Eagle family during a 2008 campaign stop, who had the moniker first. “Of course I reminded him, I beat you out on that one,” Madison said.

Madison, 64, has had a long career focused on activism and civil rights — serving as the executive director of the Detroit NAACP at 24 and later as the director of the NAACP political action department, working on voter registration efforts and leading marches and demonstrating to end the genocide in Darfur.

Madison says he tries as a radio host “to take all this Washington speak and break it down to where the average person can understand.” And just as he’s done so for his listeners, he’s tried to do the same for the president. The last time Madison was with Obama — at a meeting this summer at the White House to discuss the Affordable Care Act — the president asked the attendees, “What do I need to do to get folks to sign up for this?” Madison recalled.

“And I said, ‘Mr. President, you need to put it where the goats can get it.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘What?’” the radio host said.

It’s a phrase told to Madison by his grandfather decades ago after he came home for Thanksgiving break from Washington University in St. Louis — he was the first in his family to go to college — “talking about philosophy, economics, sociology.”

“My grandfather looks at me and says, ‘Joseph, will you put it where the goats can get it?’” Madison said.

Madison told Obama that story, and the president replied, “Oh, that’s it.”

“Goats eat down to the root, take it to the root, explain it down to the root,” Madison told POLITICO. “There’s another way of saying it, explain it to me like I’m in the second grade. Public policy can be Washington-speak, very complicated. But how can you get people to move and act if they don’t understand what you’re talking about?”

Madison said he has “directly” addressed the president with criticism on certain issues, such as income inequality and raising the minimum wage for employees at federal buildings who work for contracted vendors.

Michael Harrison, of the radio industry trade magazine Talkers, noted that he’s known Madison since the mid-90s when they were doing radio at the same D.C. station. Madison, Harrison said, is a “very good broadcaster who clearly transcended radio purely as an entertainment medium and embodied the qualities of a community leader.”

“He takes issues that are out there and may not be given attention in the mainstream media and he makes them his own,” Harrison told POLITICO. “And sometimes he takes very brave stances. He’s been on hunger strikes, he’s been arrested with Dick Gregory, he went to the Sudan.”